1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to Minimum Equipment List (MEL) documents for aircraft, and more particularly to the utilization of MEL constraints in conjunction with aircraft flight data and offboard flight plan related information for fault mitigation and determination of dispatch capabilities.
2. Description of the Related Art
Modern business aircraft have become increasingly complex, from a system, electronics and data perspective. Specifically, aircraft systems now rely on digitized data for typical operational requirements like enroute navigation data, terminal area navigation data, maintenance status and health of aircraft systems, etc. This data which, in the past, existed as paper documents, now resides on the aircraft electronics systems in a digitized format. Furthermore, modern aircraft systems are increasingly becoming connected and integrated in the aircraft as components of the overall aircraft network thus allowing internal communication between diverse aircraft systems. This has led to the potential for improved aircraft fault management.
Presently, aircraft system failures and the decision to fly with reduced system capability is generally directed through the use of a paper guidance document called the Minimum Equipment List (MEL). The MEL document is referenced by the crew of an aircraft that has experienced a malfunction that affects the safety of a planned flight. Specifically, the MEL directs a crew to appropriate action (or relief) with the information related specifically to how an airplane can be operated, when an aircraft system has failed or is malfunctioning. For example, in most business jets, an electronic flight information system (EFIS) failure on the pilot's primary flight display (PFD) requires repair and full functionality before the aircraft can be dispatched for takeoff. This guidance generally comes from the minimum equipment list and the over master minimum equipment list (MMEL) and is applied to each specific aircraft. The MEL is based on the aircraft equipment, level of redundancy, and systems.
When a crew is faced with a malfunctioning aircraft system, other decisions are required including those regarding revised aircraft performance requirements, flight plan routing, revised weather requirements, etc. This data usually comes from external sources and must be computed manually by the pilot. With the present invention, as will be disclosed below, this data is merged directly with the MEL decision support tool to provide optimal guidance for the pilot thus enabling him/her to make the most informed decision based on the consolidation of the most related information as possible.
Finally, one of the key aspects of aircraft fault mitigation is the proper recording and documentation of the fault/discrepancy which includes all of the environmental data associated with the failure. This is inherently inefficient due to the manual human input required to record aircraft discrepancies. As will be disclosed below, one of the foundational aspects of the present invention is the automatic transfer and fill of discrepancy data from the aircraft to the maintenance management application. This data includes the phase of flight during time of failure and the applicable environmental data around the airplane during the failure event.
U.S. Pat. Publcn. No. 20090055339, entitled “Process and Apparatus for Evaluating Operational Risks for Aiding In Vehicular Maintenance Decisions,” discloses a method and devices for evaluating operational risks in order to aid in the decisions concerning maintenance operations on vehicles during scheduled utilization of the vehicle. Scheduled utilization comprises at least one utilization period. After the degradation of at least one of the components of the vehicle has been analyzed, the functional consequences, for the vehicle, of the analyzed degradation are evaluated according to the scheduled utilization of the vehicle. An operational index of the vehicle is then determined for the utilization periods according to the evaluated functional consequences.
U.S. Pat. Publcn. No. 20040158367, entitled “Vehicle Monitoring and Reporting System and Method,” discloses a system and associated method for monitoring a vehicle. The system receives data, which may be fault data and/or prognostic data, associated with operation of the vehicle, such as via a data gathering element. In addition, at least one user preference is applied to the data, such as via a customization element, and at least a portion of the data is presented, such as via a display element. The user preference(s) may be an alerting preference, which includes alerting the user once the data reaches a predetermined threshold, a prioritization preference, which includes prioritizing the data based upon historical data, and/or a data delivery preference, which includes delivering the data to one or more locations.